Is there anything we can do to help reduce or even slow down the ever rising cost of fuel ?
When I started motoring, a litre of fuel, (Then it was Imperial measures) would have cost 5.5 pence. I used to buy 4 gallons for just under a pound. That same amount today is £19.27, and dear Gordon is adding another 2 pence tax per litre, appropriately on April 1st.
There must be something we can do ?

You could convert your seven to run on methane for which you will definitely need hardened valve seats. Then collect loads of animal pooh from the local farmers and let it ferment in a tank. Most sewage works generate their own electricity from all the pooh they collect. You will need understanding neighbours or preferably non at all.

Well I tell you what I do, I work weekly in Dubai and every Friday I bring back in my 2 samsonite suitcases 20 gallons of fuel I had 2 special tanks made that do not leak or smell that fit inside the cases, so I get 20 gallons of 98octane per week back for about £3 when home, I decant it into a tank then when I have a long uk break I have loads of petrol that has cost me next to nothing the tank is set underground as well.Cool man eh and no tax!!!

You could try diluting the petrol with kerosine(strictly illegal on public roads)
Many years ago when I had a caravan site (private roads), I ran a S11 Landrover on it almost neat, but I had to warm it up on petrol and then change over to kero. It ran OK for several years.
Dave

That's worse Dave, my daughter recently bought 4 litres of parafin for her greenhouse heater for 5.49 that's 6.23 a gallon and there's no road duty on it. So we've come to an arrangement, we split the cost I use it for cleaning Austin 7 bits, let the dirt settle out then she burns it in her heater. In the summer I mix it with old engine oil and paint it on my fence, it's more effective than the knats urine they sell as wood preserver, just don't get it on your skin.

If we ALL drive up Lunnon and make 'em stop closing Post Offices that'l show 'em we mean business.

Good idea Ian, but don't forget to pay the congestion charge, and for Gawds sake don't come in a 4 x 4 or our Ken will have a fit - on second thoughts.....

Ah parrafin, tis a wonderful substance. My Son wanted to clean some muck'n filth from his road going motorbike chain some years back, asking which was best stuff to use! PARRAFIN my Son, PARRAFIN, say I. Ten years later he is advising his chums in race bike paddock, PARRAFIN use PARRAFIN will clean all the gue from all the nooks and crannies

Come on George, you didn’t tell the whole story, I used to by four gallons for a pound in 1963, but my weekly wage as a third year apprentice was £3: 15s a week. If I had been fully skilled I would have been on £7.00 Work it out, It looks cheaper now than it was then with the average wage around £300 a week for 35 hours, I had to work 40 for mine!!! Still hurts though paying to fill the modern.

Sorry should be 'buy' not by!!

Strange timing this one. I have recently updated my 'About Austin Sevens' sign which I put on the car at shows. I have added a 'cost now and then' bit, including the following:
A7 price Price new: £115 (a sunroof was a £5 option). In today’s money that’s £5,513
In 1933
· Petrol cost 1 shilling and fivepence a gallon (7p then, or £3:40 in today’s money)
· The average weekly working wage was £1 10s 8d (£1:53 then, or £73:51 in today’s money)
· Tax was based on a horsepower formula. With a rating of 7.8hp the Austin 7 cost £8 (£383 in today’s money)
strange that the car is worth pretty much today what it cost in 1933 including inflation and as for the rest of it, it would seem that we are better off considering wages

.

Andy,

"....... Petrol cost 1 shilling and fivepence a gallon (7p then, or £3:40 in today’s money)"

Where, pray, are you getting your petrol at 74.8p per litre?

Perhaps we should all come and visit you.

Never the less you have come up with a bunch of very interesting figures, Particularly when displayed all together as you have done.

From where do you get your basic inflation figures, is there an official source somewhere?

Mike

Mike

I have just put this image up which has been haunting me since last week. (Although not an Austin!)

Not sure where it is or what the car is, any ideas? It looks very sad.

It seems that the poverty was much worse "back in the day", 1925 Sutton and Coldfield Trial.

Official inflation figures are here:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/RP04.pdf

but only go back to 1948

Martin

Austin Its a Rhode

apologies for any confusion, what I did was apply inflationary factors to the original price to give an equivalent for today, ie petrol cost 7 'new pence' in 1933, alowing for standard inflation that would be worth an equivalent of £3:40 today, to try to give some sort of reality to the value, whereas petrol has of course increased above inflation to best part of £5.

The 1933 weekly working wage works at a multiple of 75 times to the price of an A7. Today if you took minimum wage (ie way below average) of £220 a week, and multiplied by 75, you get £16,560, for which you could get a good mid-range car. With the maximum number of coaches and horses you could drive through my assumptions it suggests that the A7, even at £115 in 1933 was still a pretty tough buy and much more so than buying a small car today (understanding that today people have many more staples they say they need to spend money on, like playstations).
if you want to check out inflation on anything try this site, very easy to use and goes back to 1900:
http://img.thisismoney.co.uk/calculators/calcPriceInflate.html